Teens to be tried in Price Township 'Juggalo' murder

Two Cresco teenagers will be tried on charges of murdering an East Stroudsburg man who went missing in February and was found dead a week later in Price Township.

ANDREW SCOTT

"When they came under, I was sitting in the dark cover,

he sat next to me and I went and stabbed this mother(expletive),

right into his neck and I stabbed him in the head,

we checked but he started running, his (expletive) ass wasn't dead."

STROUDSBURG — These lines from an accused killer's poem were read aloud by a state police investigator in court Friday as murder victim Michael Goucher's family and friends, filling the courtroom, sat listening in horrified silence. Many wore buttons showing a picture of Goucher in his U.S. Army uniform.

Goucher was reported missing after being last seen Feb. 3. He was found dead Feb. 11 in a wooded area near Stoney Run Lane, where his car was parked, in Price Township. He had been stabbed multiple times in the head, face, throat, neck and body and covered with snow.

On Friday, Mountainhome Magisterial District Judge John Whitesell found sufficient evidence had been presented to send murder charges to trial against Shawn Freemore, 19, and Ian Seagraves, 17, who both have Cresco mailing addresses.

Freemore and Seagraves on their MySpace pages identified themselves as Juggalos, members of what police call a gang.

As sheriff's deputies led them from the courthouse after the hearing to take them back to Monroe County Correctional Facility, Freemore and Seagraves said nothing to reporters, but Freemore winked at a TV camera while keeping a straight face.

Evidence against the two includes poems — which police believe detail Goucher's murder — found in notebooks taken from Freemore's car. The poems identify no one by name or the author.

One poem reads:

"My homie chased him down the street and ran toward the light,

but nobody saw him, it was the middle of the night,

his fright was showing, the mother(expletive) started pleading,

he was all light-headed cuz his throat was all bleeding."

Some Juggalos and Juggalettes prefer violent rock and rap songs, by groups such as Insane Clown Posse and Twiztid, which contain some lyrics about stabbing people in the throat, according to testimony. Seagraves' MySpace nickname is "Throwt Stabba."

The Juggalo emblem is a man running with a meat cleaver in his hand. Police said a meat cleaver and knife were found near Goucher's body.

April Smith, 18, Seagraves' former fiancée, testified Friday, keeping her head bowed and eyes cast downward and speaking in a timid voice.

Smith, a senior at the Pennsylvania Treatment and Healing (PATH) alternative school in East Stroudsburg, gave the following account:

Smith met Seagraves at PATH about a year ago and met Freemore through him. She and Seagraves became engaged in January, but she later lost the ring he bought for her and started dating someone else after his arrest.

Some Juggalos and Juggalettes have nicknames. Seagraves' nickname is "Itsophrenic" or "Itso" and Freemore's is "Skippy Critter" or "Skippy."

Smith knew Freemore had met Goucher online and that the two had started a relationship, but she didn't know what kind of relationship.

She talked to Seagraves by phone one day after Goucher had gone missing and could tell something was bothering Seagraves.

"When I asked him what was wrong, he said him and Skippy did something awful," she said. "When I asked him what, he said they killed Michael."

When Smith said this, a woman sitting in the back of the courtroom loudly gasped.

State police testified to the following:

When Goucher's body was found Feb. 11, information and evidence led police to Freemore. That afternoon, police found Freemore sleeping in the back seat of his car on the road leading to where police later learned Seagraves lived. They woke Freemore and he agreed to go with them to be questioned.

As he was driven past the crime scene where police were investigating, Freemore asked troopers, "Did they find that guy (Goucher) yet? I hope they find him OK. I know him."

Freemore waived his Miranda rights and voluntarily gave troopers the following story:

He met Goucher online in January and started a romantic relationship with him. Goucher, a U.S. Army veteran and neighborhood crime watch captain, at the time was an East Stroudsburg High School South custodian interested in becoming a police officer.

Freemore and Goucher had a romantic tryst and made plans the next day to meet again Feb. 3. He went to meet Goucher on Stoney Run Lane, Price Township, not far from Freemore's home, on the night of Feb. 3 and waited, but Goucher never showed.

At that point during the interview, police told Freemore that Goucher had been found murdered, to which Freemore said, "That's scary." When police mentioned the idea of having him take a polygraph test, he became agitated and told police he wanted to go home and not talk to them anymore.

He met Goucher after midnight Feb. 4 on Stoney Run Lane and got into Goucher's car. They started having sex. He told Goucher to stop because it hurt, but Goucher wouldn't stop.

He broke away from Goucher and got out of the car. When Goucher came after him, he turned and stabbed Goucher in the stomach, at which point Goucher collapsed to the ground. Goucher threatened to go to the police, at which point he stabbed Goucher again, dragged him into the woods and kept stabbing him.

He then took items from Goucher's person, covered the body and discarded his own pants and shirt near Goucher's car.

After hearing this second version, police drove Freemore back to the scene and had him show them the locations where some of the things he said occurred. Certain discrepancies he gave in his responses to troopers' questions at that point led them to believe he was covering for someone else who was involved.

That's when Freemore again changed his story, saying Seagraves helped him kill Goucher.

Freemore gave the following third version:

He and Seagraves had planned to lure, rob and kill Goucher.

Freemore contacted Goucher to set up their second romantic tryst for the night of Feb. 3, under the Stoney Run Lane bridge. The plan was for him to lure Goucher under the bridge, where Seagraves would be lying in wait, and they would then rob and kill Goucher.

Things went as planned and Seagraves delivered the first stab wound. Goucher tried to escape, running out from under the bridge back toward the road and calling, "Code blue, code blue," into his hand-held radio.

Freemore said Seagraves caught up to Goucher, took the radio and threw it to the ground, after which they took Goucher into the woods. Freemore stabbed Goucher in the throat and Seagraves stabbed him in the neck, where the knife stuck. Freemore repeatedly stabbed him again while Seagraves went to find Goucher's radio, which "was still making noise."

Freemore and Seagraves then covered the body in snow, taking items from Goucher's person. Freemore also took a DVD and small digital voice recorder from Goucher's car, and he and Seagraves then left the scene.

After hearing this final version of events, police had Freemore show them where Seagraves lived. Police drove Freemore there, where he led them to the stolen DVD and the shirt he thought Seagraves was wearing when they killed Goucher.

At the end of the hearing, defense attorneys Joe D'Andrea for Seagraves and Wieslaw Niemoczynski for Freemore told the judge the prosecution had presented insufficient evidence linking their clients to the crime. The judge disagreed, granting First Assistant District Attorney Michael Mancuso's request to send all charges against both defendants to trial.

"My son was home that night like he was every night that week, playing video games," Seagraves' mother, Kathleen Seagraves, said afterward. "He was on probation (for a separate juvenile court case) at the time, so we made sure he was home. There's no way he could have done this."

Freemore's family declined to comment.

"I don't think April Smith's testimony is the greatest," said D'Andrea. "I don't know if police had a proper warrant to take the poems into evidence. Those poems may very well have been written prior to Mr. Goucher's death."

Since Seagraves is only 17, D'Andrea said he will file a request to have the case against Seagraves moved from adult to juvenile court, where Seagraves if found delinquent would face a less severe penalty.

"It's fair to say the writings confiscated by police are very damaging to my client," Niemoczynski said. "As far as the confession police said he gave them, there are various phenomena surrounding confessions, and these phenomena must be looked at to see who said what to whom under what circumstances.

"I need to look at this more deeply to determine who was involved in what fashion," he said.

Goucher's mother, Mary Ann Goucher, said, "Oh my God, what a nightmare. Those kids planned premeditated murder. They're animals and should be put to sleep. I just want justice for my boy."

Freemore and Seagraves remain in county jail without bail, charged with murder, criminal conspiracy, aggravated assault, robbery and tampering with physical evidence. Both will appear again in county court at future dates.